Black Country Living Museum, Dudley

2024 RIBA West Midlands Award

Black Country Living Museum, Dudley
Napier Clarke Architects for Black Country Living Museum
Contract value: Confidential
GIA: 1530m²

The new entrance building provides this popular open-air museum with not only a gateway but also a visitor centre with café, shop, offices and welfare facilities. It is designed to improve the welcome experience for up to 5,000 people per day coming to view and learn about the area’s rich industrial heritage.

Navigating difficult ground conditions peppered with mine shafts and tunnels, the architect produced a design that does not compete with the exhibits, but provides a legible yet flexible entrance point. It greets visitors with a strong but familiar pitched roof, echoing the museum’s exhibited buildings. Its steel frame is a key principle of the design and relates directly to the site’s industrial heritage. The protective metal-clad exterior shrouds a meticulously detailed interior, conceived to be easily demountable. Stripped of any superfluous detail, it features bare, ‘self-finished’ materials, providing a practical, working building in harmony with its context.

The architect revisited all aspects of the building to ensure best value selections were made. The result is a lean, clean design yet generous with space, light, warmth, welcome and delight. It is forward-facing and purposeful, centred around the human needs, very much befitting the industrial heritage context and the ‘living’ museum.

The jury commended the new building as testament to the industrial heritage of the region while seamlessly blending contemporary design sensibilities with respect for its environmental and social impact. Underneath its black pitched roofs, the interior space transcends mere homage, creating an atmosphere of sophistication and refinement where people can gather. The large windows frame views of the museum’s exhibited buildings, inviting visitors through but also creating a linger space and fostering a sense of place.

The museum celebrates the history of ordinary working people and their buildings. The architectural design of this addition provides further industrial narrative, imbued with the resilience and ingenuity of those who came before. It allows visitors to make a connection to both the past and the future, inspired with the possibility that they too can make a meaningful impact on the world around them.

See the rest of the RIBA West Midlands winners here. And all the RIBA Regional Awards here

To see the whole RIBA Awards process visit architecture.com.

RIBA Regional Awards 2024 sponsored by EH Smith and Autodesk